Too Much Trouble

by Tom Avery

  ‘What, sir? That wasn’t me!’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Ryan, pick it up,’ the teacher said.

  ‘But it wasn’t me, sir!’

  The teacher continued to stare at him.

  I was sitting behind Ryan. The position where I was most likely not to be noticed. I saw Ryan kick his friend, whose pencil case it was.

  His friend then quickly said, ‘It was me, sir.’

  The teacher looked at him sceptically. ‘Come and pick it up then, Leo.’

  As Ryan’s friend Leo stood up, the teacher glared at Ryan, then turned back to the board. Ryan looked round, grinning.

  I always gave Ryan sweets if I had them, and I let him or his friends copy work or sometimes just take my homework.

  If Ryan had taken too much notice of me I would have been in even more trouble than if a teacher started noticing.

  I knew who you had to be extra nice to.

  ***

  We didn’t walk for long before we arrived at a large, terraced house, maybe three storeys high with big, tall windows.

  Mr Green said, ‘Here we are.’ He looked up and down the street and at the neighbours’ windows, then walked up to the front door. We followed behind. At the door he pulled out a long piece of metal about the width of a piece of string and as long as a pencil.

  He turned to us with raised eyebrows and said, ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’ He inserted the metal object into a lock and, after some skilful twisting, the door swung open. As soon as it opened we could hear Mr Green’s friends.

  Laughter. Shouting. Swearing. Every so often a smash of glass or porcelain. It sounded brilliant.

  Mr Green closed the door behind us and led us through the hallway and into a large room which was obviously someone’s living room. But it looked like a dump. There was writing on the walls. Takeaway rubbish littered the floor. One of the sofas had a large rip in it, and the filling had spilled out.

  Three boys stood on sofas and chairs around the room, bouncing up and down. A pile of crockery was on the floor beside one of the chairs. As we entered, the three boys were in the middle of a game of catch. Instead of a ball they were using a wine glass.

  They erupted as we came in.

  ‘Eh! Mr Green! Who’s these newbies?’ a little boy, who looked about eleven, shouted.

  Another called ‘Watch out!’, and hurled the wine glass towards us. Prince dropped his bag and caught it by the stem. The bowl snapped off and smashed against the wall behind him. The three boys cheered.

  Mr Green grinned and slapped Prince on the back. ‘We’ve got a quick one here,’ he said. ‘Emmanuel, Prince, I want you to meet Ibby.’ He was the little one. ‘Kieran.’ Kieran was really tall and a bit fat. He didn’t look scary, but he was the biggest kid I’ve ever seen. ‘And Jamal.’ Jamal was the boy who threw the glass. He was about my size, but he held himself like he was bigger. He came over and shook our hands, looking us up and down.

  ‘Go and get everyone.’ Mr Green addressed this to Kieran and Ibby. ‘What do you think, Jamal?’

  Jamal took a step back still looking at us. ‘I like ‘em, Mr Green, especially this one,’ he said, ruffling Prince’s hair. I think I knew who I needed to be extra nice to.

  Gradually the room filled up with more rowdy boys and a few girls. They were talking and calling to each other whilst they all had a good look at us. I tried to count them as they moved round the room and got to thirteen when Mr Green shouted, ‘Shut up and sit down!’ They all quietened down and found a place to sit, either on the floor or perched on a sofa or chair.

  Mr Green waited for them to be quiet before he carried on. ‘First of all, this is the last night here. We are moving tomorrow.’ A few of the boys cheered and Jamal grinned wickedly. ‘Make the most of it. Let’s not leave anything valuable lying around. And secondly, you’ve noticed the new faces. This is Emmanuel and Prince, say hello to them.’

  There was a range of replies, ‘hello’, ‘all right’, ‘yeah, yeah’ and other variations.

  One girl just smiled at me. She was a really little, white girl. She had dark hair and even darker eyes. She just smiled at me for a moment, and then looked up at Mr Green, who carried on speaking.

  ‘Jamal, show them around. Everyone, be nice. I ‘ll see you tomorrow.’ Mr Green acknowledged with a wave the various goodbyes that the kids called to him, then walked out of the room. The others began to disperse.

  Jamal came and offered his hand again. He pulled us both to our feet and said, ‘Right, let’s make you feel at home.’

  ***

  I just about remember moving with my parents to our first home. Before that we had lived with my grandma. My mother and father, me, and a little, baby Prince. I don’t remember living there, but my parents told me that there wasn’t room for all of us. Grandma had helped us find our own home.

  It was tiny. Just one room. But I remember how happy my parents were. My father swung me around the room before we had any furniture.

  It was a great place to live. We could walk to school and get the little green bus into town along the dust road. That was before I was big enough to run with my dad. My father worked at a factory. He rode his bike there, early every morning. Until the last few months.

  The last few months we lived in Africa, we didn’t go to school and my father didn’t go to work. My parents didn’t tell us why. We thought at first it must be a holiday.

  After a while, though, we started to hear explosions and bangs in the night. Sometimes there was screaming. For the last few weeks we didn’t leave the house much.

  So I had been in a new house before, but not one like Mr Green had taken us to.

  ***

  Jamal introduced us around. Like Mr Green had asked, everyone was nice. Jamal introduced Prince as the fastest little catcher around. Prince loved that.

  We met everyone that night.

  Jamal was sort of in charge. I was right about being extra nice to him. When he entered a room I could see the same look in people’s eyes that I saw in Ryan’s friends’ eyes. Wary expectancy.

  His main friends were Ibby, real name Ibrahim, Kieran, and two Jamaican boys called Michael and Dwayne. I made a note to be as nice to these boys as I was to Jamal. They all loved Prince. Michael and Dwayne called him ‘the Little Prince’.

  There were two girls who were inseparable. Carla and Sofina. They both had big hair and wore matching, green scarfs. They had other matching accessories that I saw on other days. They giggled when they met us.

  There was also Alex, Sastre, Kammy, Julia and Freddie. I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but that was most of the gang. We met some of them playing football in the garden. Julia was a girl, but a bit of a boy too. I mean she was good at football and stuff.

  The little, dark-haired girl who had smiled at me was called Terri. She was younger than me, maybe nearer Prince’s age. She smiled at me again when Jamal introduced us. She didn’t smile at Jamal, she didn’t even look at him. She said hello quietly and then turned back to the book she had been reading.

  As we left the bedroom, Jamal said, ‘Terri’s quiet. I think she’s a bit messed up. You know?’

  I didn’t know, but I didn’t ask either. Terri seemed all right to me.

  Chapter 12

  Do you remember your first day at school? I do. Not sure if you will get on with anyone. No idea where anything is. Trying to take everything in. And the utter exhaustion at the end.

  That first night, with Jamal and Terri and everyone, was like that. Prince fitted in straight away but I felt nervous. Not knowing anyone. Not knowing where we were. Not knowing if we would be allowed to stay. But everyone seemed. . . well, you’ll see.

  After Jamal had shown us round, I played football for a bit. Sastre was the best. He could get over five hundred in keepie-uppy. All those guys were OK. They passed the ball to me and asked me some questions.

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘Where did Mr Green meet you?’

  ‘Why have
you run away?’

  I didn’t like to answer too much. Habit, I guess. I didn’t realise for a few days that all the kids shared similar stories. Trouble in their past. Runaways. Picked up by Mr Green. Brought to a house like this one.

  When I got tired of football I thought I would go and try to talk to Terri. I walked through the lounge where Prince was playing crockery catch with Jamal and his friends. I walked through the middle of the room. Jamal threw a plate and I flinched as it sailed inches over my head. They all laughed. Prince laughed as well. The plate smashed into the wall as Dwayne failed to catch it.

  Carla and Sofina were sitting on the stairs. ‘All right, Emmanuel?’ they chimed together, then giggled.

  ‘I like your shoes,’ Carla said, smirking. I looked down at my feet. I was wearing school shoes that I had bought at a supermarket. They were a year old and showed it. One of the heels was falling off and the laces were frayed. The many scuffs were highlighted by the thirty minutes I had spent playing football.

  ‘Erm, thanks,’ I said.

  The two girls burst into giggles as I struggled past them up the stairs.

  I knocked on the door to the bedroom Terri had been in. No answer. I pushed it open slowly. Terri was right where she had been lying on the bed. But she was no longer reading. Her eyes were closed and the book was still open in her hand, resting on the bed.

  She was fully clothed but I thought she looked cold. She was lying on top of the duvet. I carefully pulled it out. She moved a bit. I laid the duvet over her but not before I’d taken the book out of her hand.

  There was a chair in the corner of the room in front of some enormous wardrobes. I sat down and opened the book. It was called Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Do you know that one? I didn’t.

  I still don’t, really; it was way too difficult for me. For instance, the first sentence alone had one hundred and one words in it! I know, that’s mad, right? One hundred and one. 101. Here’s some of the words from the opening sentence: prudent, refrain, fictitious, inasmuch, prefixed. I promise I didn’t make any of them up.

  I guessed that Terri was really smart. I tried to read on, but before I’d finished a page my own eyes had closed.

  As I fell asleep I realised it had only been that morning that I found out about Lil’ Legacy and ran to stop Prince. It was just that afternoon that my uncle had decided we were more trouble than we were worth. And it was only a few short hours ago that we’d met Mr Green.

  I think that was the longest day of my life.

  I slept well.

  Chapter 13

  With all this talk of trouble, I thought I should tell you about the worst trouble I got into before this began. Before I moved to England. Before my parents sent us away.

  My father had got home at the normal time. The back wheel of his bike made a clunking noise every time it turned, so we heard him coming from inside the house. I loved that bike. I dreamed of the day when I could have one just like it. I wanted to ride with my father. But it was too big for me, even to practise on.

  My mother went out to meet him, to tell him what my teacher had said. When they came inside he said, ‘Come with me, Emmanuel, and bring that.’

  We were walking towards the water pump. I was carrying the big water bottle, as my father had told me to. We filled that bottle up a few times a day. It was so big that once it was full I had to roll it; it was too heavy to lift.

  I remember feeling sick every step we took on that journey. I had been waiting for hours for my father to get home. I knew he was going to speak to me.

  ‘We are so disappointed with you, Emmanuel,’ my father said.

  These few words made me well up, a stray tear running down my cheek.

  ‘But he was laughing at Prince, Dadda.’ My voice cracked as I tried to defend myself.

  ‘There is never an excuse for fighting, Emmanuel.’ Tears were rolling down my face now. ‘I don’t care what that boy said or did. There is never a reason to fight. Never. Do you understand me, Emmanuel?’

  ‘He made Prince cry and I couldn’t. . .’

  ‘Never, Emmanuel.’ My father said this so firmly, my mouth clamped shut on what I was going to say and I tasted the salty tears in my mouth. ‘Later, you will tell me exactly what happened and what you could have done differently, but now you will collect water on your own. You will collect the water on your own every day until you have shown Prince a good example. He looks up to you, Emmanuel. If he sees you fighting, he will fight. You must show him the right way to behave.’

  We did talk later and I collected lots of water. But I still wasn’t sure. Is fighting never right?

  ***

  When I woke up, Terri had taken the book back. She was sitting on the bed, reading, and light was streaming through the window. I stretched and she looked up from her book.

  ‘So, you’re Emmanuel, right?’ She placed her thumb in the book to keep her place as she said this.

  ‘Yep,’ I replied, ‘and you’re Terri.’ I felt embarrassed. I’d only just met this girl and I’d fallen asleep in the same room as her. She probably thought I was really weird. I brushed down my creased and blood-stained clothes as she asked me another question.

  ‘What do you think of the book, Emmanuel?’

  This seemed like a funny question and I thought about lying, but decided not to. ‘I didn’t get far, it was a bit hard for me.’

  ‘Do you like books?’ she asked. She put the book down on the bed next to her, quickly checking what page she was on while I thought about my answer.

  ‘Some. Do you?’ I replied.

  Her face lit up. ‘Yeah. I love books. This one’s OK,’ she said, holding up the book she’d been reading, ‘but mostly I like mysteries. Have you read any Agatha Christie books?’ I could honestly say that I had never heard of Agatha Christie. In fact, I’d never even heard the name Agatha before.

  I opened my mouth to answer but at that moment there was a shout from downstairs that sounded like Jamal.

  ‘Come on, you lot, get a move on. We’ve gotta go in ten minutes.’

  Terri jumped up. ‘Mr Green must be here.’ She looked at me still sitting there. She gave me a questioning look as if to ask ‘What are you doing?’ but instead said, ‘Come on!’ Maybe she was scared of Mr Green.

  We all met downstairs in the living room. Mr Green was waiting for us, and Jamal was herding everyone through the door. Mr Green told us that it was time to go, and all the others seemed to understand. They gathered their scant belongings, which were similar to mine and Prince’s, a few clothes and a few personal items bundled into old bags.

  We left the house in pairs or threes, each group waiting for a minute till the other had gone. I left with Prince, who was grinning. Maybe it felt like a game to him. We all met on the corner. Mr Green told us to walk in pairs like we’d done on school trips. That’s called a walking bus, I think.

  Prince was still smiling as we set off. ‘Where are we going, Em?’ he asked.

  I had no idea. Jamal was walking in front of us, next to Ibby, so I leaned forward to ask him. ‘Where are we going?’

  Jamal turned round with a grin. ‘We’re going to work.’ Jamal’s grin was infectious. Me and Prince turned to each other, grinning. We both remembered what Mr Green had promised to teach us. He seemed like a magician. Making that wallet disappear and reappear.

  Jamal craned to look over the heads of the few children in front of him; checking that Mr Green was engrossed in a phone conversation.

  He then dropped back beside me. ‘Mr Green picks somewhere for us to work,’ he said. ‘Could be in town, a train station, anywhere really. We go to work for the day and then later on Mr Green will take us to a new empty house. We’ll stay at that house for a week, maybe two, then Mr Green finds us another one.’

  It didn’t seem like much of an explanation. I had lots of questions to ask, but as Jamal finished, Mr Green called out, ‘Jamal, get over here.’

  Jamal went jogging off to the front of the
line straight away.

  I’ve asked myself many times why Mr Green was allowed to walk fourteen children around a city in broad daylight. But what would you do if you saw fourteen children walking in a line behind an adult? Think school trip? I’m sure you’d never guess the truth. Mr Green wasn’t stupid.

  Prince walked on and started chatting to Ibby. I stared straight ahead, lost in thought until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked around to dark eyes.

  ‘So, Agatha Christie?’

  I smiled a broad smile at Terri, but she just looked at me, waiting for me to answer.

  ‘I’ve never heard of that person,’ I told her, and Terri’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘You’ve never heard of Agatha Christie?’ She looked a bit stunned but also like she was joking. ‘She’s the best!’

  I shook my head to confirm that I definitely hadn’t heard of her.

  ‘So what are these ‘some books’ that you do like?’ she asked.

  I had to think hard. I really wasn’t a big reader. My class teacher in Year Six had read us Prince Caspian and The Horse and his Boy from the Chronicles of Narnia.

  ‘Do you like the Narnia books?’ I asked.

  Terri’s face lit up again - her big brown eyes got even bigger. ‘Which is your favourite?’ she said.

  But before I could answer Jamal had rejoined us. When I looked round, Terri seemed to have disappeared.

  ‘Right,’ Jamal began, ‘Prince, you’re with me today. Emmanuel, Kieran’s gonna look after you. Kieran’s OK,’ he said loudly, almost shouting, ‘as long as he doesn’t try to pinch any purses!’

  Ibby burst into laughter and Kieran shouted from a few places forward. ‘Shut up! That lady was well strong.’

  Ibby turned round, still smirking. ‘Kieran got beaten up by an old lady last week. It was well funny.’

  Prince was giggling. I wasn’t.

  I think it was then that it sunk in, what we were going to be doing. I knew I’d stolen that wallet, but that had been once, to survive. This was something different. This was organised. I don’t know why that made a difference but it did. We were going to be stealing from people and it was all planned.